Republican Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has made it official: He’s running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in 2018. Hawley, a 37-year-old in his first year of elected office, will release a video Tuesday morning announcing his candidacy.

He said he wasn’t planning to run for Senate. “But we believe we have to do all we can to win a better future for our country,” Hawley said on the video.

McCaskill and Missouri Democrats have anticipated the announcement for months. The Missouri Democratic Party in July launched a digital ad accusing Hawley of using the attorney general’s office as a stepping stone to higher office.

Prior to his current stint as Missouri Attorney General, Hawley was a lawyer for the anti-LGBT Becket Fund For Religious Liberty, which represented Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court.

In recent years the Becket Fund has bestowed its annual “religious freedom” award upon anti-LGBT Archbishop Charles Chaput, former NOM chairman and Manhattan Declaration author Robert George, right wing radio host Eric Metaxas, and late right wing activist John Templeton, who is believed have been NOM’s primary financial supporter.